At the end of last year my wife and I celebrated a milestone. Two of our three children are now able to operate with complete independence in the bathroom…

… or so we thought…

It was my Mother (Nana to the kids) who first noticed the suspicious drips and drops sprinkling her bathroom floor. The splashes were noted again and again over the course of several weeks whenever our three-year-old (Emma) had been there. Each time, the mysterious moisture was dismissed by Nana as the product of enthusiastic hand washing.

The way Nana tells the story, she accidentally walked in on Emma using the potty. She opened the bathroom door to find her beautiful and perfect granddaughter bent over the toilet with one arm completely inside the bowl, vigorously splashing the contents. Emma apparently looked at her and said brightly, “I’m cleaning the potty!”

Nana was so shocked that she didn’t say anything. Emma evidently saw the concern on Nana’s face. She followed up with, “It’s okay, I’m using a brush,” pulling her arm from the toilet and brandishing a dripping wet brush in her small hand.

It wasn’t actually a cleaning brush, but rather Nana’s hair brush.

The same hair brush Nana used on her head each and every day of her life after she bathed.

Each and every day – including the past several weeks that it had also been moonlighting as a toilet brush.

This Halloween was our first with three children. Our youngest is only 11 months so he didn’t care about costumes (we gave him a cape anyway). Our oldest is in first grade and cared a great deal about costumes. She chose Batgirl – it was a homemade costume that ended up looking very cool. Our middle child stubbornly insisted on being a “Princess-Cowboy-Superhero.”

This could take the form of comforting a crying child while also trying to determine the cause of the tears. It could be a case of frantically searching for a lost stuffed animal minutes before bedtime.

Most of the the time it just means figuring out what the smell is and where on earth it’s coming from.

For the past few years I have been suffering from eczema on my hands. After eliminating chemical and environmental sources, I have been looking at the possibility of a food allergy. Our seven-month-old has had some issues with milk sensitivities and we thought perhaps I was experiencing a similar issue.

I visited the doctor in early summer and had some blood testing done. As we waited for the results we have discussed how much more challenging it would be to avoid other common elements like corn, eggs, gluten, wheat, yeast, etc (or even worse a combination of more than one). As my wife is still breastfeeding, we have seen how difficult it is to eliminate just one staple like milk from the diet. Because we eat mostly food that is prepared from scratch, the idea of avoiding several ingredients seemed quite daunting.

As it turns out I am allergic to all of these and more. It seems that I am at least “sensitive” to everything from the everyday ingredients listed above to more unusual foods like asparagus, lobster, and litchi fruit. In fact, the only items that I remember having absolutely no sensitivities to were cheddar cheese, horseradish, and grapefruit.

While I will admit that each is tasty in their own way, I can’t think of many tasty recipes that combine all three…

He is very curious, exploring everything within reach by gnawing, chewing, and drooling. He is also very engaging, reacting to loved ones with smiles, giggles, and shrieks.

He is especially fascinated by his two older sisters. When they are close enough he gnaws, chews and drools on them. However, he is usually content to watch them run from one end of the house to the other. He is too small to sit up on his own, but he loves to be held in a sitting position to witness the chaos. Periodically, he will get tired and bend forward at the waist to rest and thoughtfully chew on his toes.

Each time our three year-old sees this she will stop, bow, and gravely announce, “Your Majesty.”

Then she runs aways laughing like a complete maniac.

She is also developing a personality – a very big one by the looks of it.

Grimaud

I like to draw. Three years ago, I started drawing on little yellow sticky notes. These are the little pictures I like to draw. If you want to contact me you can leave a comment or send an email to: inkjotcomics@gmail.com